Once More In The Light
by Mystic25
Summary: Christmas story. No elves, no Jacob Marley people changing Max and Logan's ways. Just a story of this time in my way, it prob will make you cry though..


Once More In The Light  
Author: Mystic25 (yellowrubberduck31@hotmail.com)  
  
Summary: Christmas story. No elves, no Jacob Marley people changing Max and Logan's ways. Just a story of this time in my way.   
  
Disclaimer: Remember it's the giving season Cameron..so slappin me with a lawsuit would classify you as a meanie (to put it G rated that is) I just wanted to play with them.  
  
A/N: I know this one is late for a Christmas story but I promised my "guys" I would do this, and since I've been at my aunts house in West Virginia I haven't been able to sit down and write in a week. Usually I don't like holiday fics cause they are normally soooo sappy and mushy, little elves visit Max and them and everything goes to perfect in one swoop. Have to break that dream bubble, Christmas doesn't change who you are..it works with it.  
  
A/N #2: Hope everyone had a great Christmas, Hanukah, Quanza, Ramadan, what ever you celebrate this year. This fic is for you. Happy New Year guys.  
  
SIDE NOTE TO WHITE KITTIE: Jess, thanks for the nice christmasy fic and the email, and the inspiration by your story.  
  
*****   
  
"Get out you little bitch!" harsh words were shouted at the child. A small girl, barely three years old, fresh out of diapers, and newly able to walk on two legs. She was gaunt, eyes red and sunken and not just because she had been crying from the blow she received from her "father" She was half starved, having to suffice on pieces of cheese on discarded hamburger wrappers in the trash.   
  
"Momma?" her head turned, little black ringlets of hair moved with her, her chocolate brown eyes longed for the answer.  
  
"Momma's dead girl!" the man shouted at her like she in all her three year old knowledge was suppose to know this. He, the man, leaned back into his used couch and threw an empty box at the baby "Clean up kid and shut up, mommy is gone!"  
  
She was still too young to fully understand the full meaning of "cleaning up" but the harsh tone cut her like a knife. She knew what "gone" meant. Three years old, she saw her mother get shot by a thirty off six her daddy kept in his closet. She didn't know that she was "dead". Just that mommy was not there, to hold her, hug her, and to protect her, from him.  
  
She, the child named Reia, a name meaning "light" in some form of Egyptian context, had to clean up the blood where mommy "fell asleep" and had to sit outside with the stray dogs while sector cops took the woman's body away.   
  
She had to become something that night, a woman in a three-year-old body. She learned to change her own diaper and to take daddy's empty whisky bottles and smash them in the hall so he couldn't catch her too fast. She learned how to cry without a sound at night when he threw bottles and plates at her head cutting her everywhere, and when she had to take a bath in the old bear claw tub standing on top of a man who had passed out there from LSD.   
  
Christmas lights shown around their small poor neighborhood. A small splashing of twinkling from those who could afford second hand lights. They fascinated her, even after all her bruises and scars and wetting herself from being scared she was still a fascinated child.   
  
Reia, whose name meant light, loved light, even though she was forced to squat in a dark, stanky hell.   
  
Night came; she had to take out a box to the trash twenty yards from the first floor dingy apartment. The air was cold and she was dressed improperly for it in a small little dollar store nighty with a teddy bear smiling on it. A huge black rat hissed at her, waving his whiskers around. She was too scared to move, and the thing crawled to her bare foot and sunk teeth into her toes.  
  
She screamed, only the way a child could who's in pain. She sat down on her bottom and cried, holding her hurt foot and crying still, calling out "mama mama" with such deep emotions that sadness itself could have originated from the sound.   
  
She didn't bother to wipe her eyes, just let all the mess run down her cheeks. Despite her father's lies Reia was beautiful. Smooth brown skin, dark eyes, shimmery hair the color of mahogany usually pulled into baby ringlets around her young face.   
  
"Girl get in here NOW!" her father had come out, looming like a bear at her in the darkness.   
  
She screamed again, afraid, and she ran, ran away from it all.  
  
*I ran away today  
Ran from the noise, ran away  
Don't wanna go back to that but don't have no choice no way  
It ain't easy growin' up in World War Three   
Never knowing what love could be you'll see  
I don't want love to destroy me like it has done my family*   
  
Faster and faster her little legs pulled her away from the pain and that house. Daddy chased her, calling her, not Reia, but bitch, something a child never deserved to be called.  
  
She ran, didn't look, right into the path of the traffic. Tires squelched, someone stopped, a rider on a motorcycle. A young woman, no helmet, a woman as heart stoppingly beautiful as Reia would one day grow up to be.  
  
The woman's name was Max, and she looked at this little thing that had ran into her path. A barely there little girl who looked like she just fought off Satan, with raggedy clothes and tears all over her face.   
  
Max was taught to avoid things of this nature. The extraneous circumstances, they weren't her own, they would take away from the mission. But this child, how the hell would she know it? This wasn't then, this was now. The girl looked so lost, so sad, her heartless soldier side died a long time ago. The day SHE was a girl, so lost, so sad, seeing her sister get blown to hell right in front of her eyes.   
  
"Sweetie are you lost?" she asked the child in a voice that would soothe her own babies, if she had any.  
  
The girl looked at her with a tear-streaked face, not talking, only crying.   
  
"What's wrong?" the words no sooner left her mouth then she heard the sound. A man, calling and shouting, coming closer to the girl.  
  
"Bitch I'm gonna kill you! Get your little ass over here now!"  
  
Max looked at the man, and looked at the little girl, and she made her decision before she could sit and weigh it out in her head. It was time for action, no matter what happened as a result. She jumped off the bike and grabbed the girl. She screamed and cried. Max put her on the bike in front, securing her there with her jacket.  
  
The man was shouting at her now, calling HER the bitch, saying that was his daughter.   
  
Max took off, fast, holding this little baby, not looking back.  
  
****   
  
It had rained, hard and long while they rode. Max bore the brunt of the rain, shielding it off a child she didn't know, unaware of her name being Reia, where she came from, who she was. All she knew was she did what she had to do.  
  
Reia clung to her, shying away from the cold chrome of the bike, seeking warmth, a substitute to the position that bore the name "momma"  
  
Max drove blindly, taking alleyways and side roads to avoid crashing. She and the girl were soaked completely through the bone by the time they reached her dilapated apartment. The child was too frightened and too cold to walk, so Max carried her inside, balancing her on her hip like she had done it a thousand times. They went up the building that had no elevator, through her apartment door.  
  
"Boo what the hell happened?" Cindy, her roommate and best friend walked over to her, concerned, and confused at seeing a baby in the arms of Max. She had been decorating a small mini tree on their counter with small white lights and tiny bits of ribbon  
  
Her friend didn't answer her right away, setting Reia down on their small couch. She did not want to break away from Max, clinging to her like a drowning man.  
  
"It's okay" Max's voice was soothing. She wiped the water off her forehead, dusting it off her ringlets as well. "Sweet baby" she turned to her friend "Her bastard father was insane. He chased her right in front of my bike, he probably was gonna kill her"   
  
Cindy's face became compassionate then, and she knelt next to the girl on the sofa "Why'd such a sweet baby boo have to deal with that?" she rested a hand on the child's leg, but Reia jerked away, throwing her arms around Max and crying. "Momma.."  
  
Max rubbed her back, comforting her as best she could. "It's okay" her gaze at Cindy was sad, but she didn't correct Reia on her mistake. She was so lost, if she wanted to call her momma, let it be. Max looked down at this baby she was hugging "Can you tell me your name hun?" she pushed a ringlet away from her face.  
  
"Reia" Cindy read the name Reia's mother Jasmine had sewn into her tiny nighty.  
  
"Reia?" Max pronounced the name and looked at the girl "Is that it sweetie? It's a pretty name. Well Reia, I'm Max"  
  
"Momma?"  
  
Max could almost hear her cast iron heart crack. "No baby, I'm not your real momma, but you can call me that if you want"  
  
Reia didn't say a word, but hugged Max again, accepting her plan.  
  
Max rubbed her back again, feeling the water seep through her nightgown.   
  
Cindy touched Max's face with one hand "Jesus girl you're like ice-"  
  
"Reia needs dry clothes" Max ignored her remark "She's going to freeze to death-"   
  
"You too boo" Cindy interrupted "I don't like that gray tone of your skin. Let me find something for the baby and YOU get out of those wet clothes" she went to gently take Reia from Max so she could clean her up but the girl started to cry again.  
  
"I'd better be with you" Max hugged Reia again "She's scared, an she seems to like me-"  
  
"Original Cindy like you too suga that's why I don't wanna see you sick"  
  
"I can wait-" she stood up and took Reia into the bathroom.  
  
She started to take off the girl's clothes. Reia was scared, but she didn't jerk away. /Thank God, that shit didn't mess with her like that too/ Once the nightie was discarded she saw healing bruises on Reia's neck and chest "He really hurt you a lot kiddo didn't he-" she said this low and to herself, turning to switch the water in the tub on to fill it with warm water. "Reia, baby you need to take a bath to get warm again. You're too cold-" she pulled off the girl's panties "The water is nice and warm, and I promise nothing will hurt you. You're safe-" she picked up the girl and lowered her into the lukewarm water. She took a white washrag and dip it in the water, cleaning off the dirt and grime in her hair. Reia was still the entire time; this was the first time since she was one that she had someone touch her in a gentle way. She looked at Max with complete trust, and a sadness that took her breath away.  
  
Max washed her off as best she could, draining the water and wrapping her in a huge yellow bath towel that swamped her tiny form.   
  
"Here boo" Cindy handed Max one of her white 'girl's kick ass' T-shirts which more then serve as enough cover for Reia.   
  
Max draped the shirt over Reia's small body and scooped her up again, bringing her back out into the living room and set her down on the couch.  
  
"You hungry?" she looked into Reia's young, soulful, sad eyes.  
  
She nodded a barely there nod, still not having spoken one word since Max found her.  
  
Max stood up and stepped over into the tiny kitchen. Opening the fridge she looked for something that would satisfy a three year old.   
  
"Here hun" she handed he a small peanut butter sandwich cut into bite size pieces so she could chew it easier.  
  
Reia ate the food without a word, taking it hungrily enough but always looking to Max as if asking if she was allowed to have more.  
  
Max watched her eat the entire thing before wiping of the gob of peanut butter on the side of the girl's face. "You were hungry huh?" she smiled "Want more?"  
  
Reia's eyes lit up then.  
  
"Sorry boo that was the last of the PB" Cindy announced sadly, chucking the empty container in the trash  
  
Max sighed. They never seemed to have enough food around. Their measly paychecks they had were stretched as far as they could possibly go. More of it went into food then clothes, but still it always ran out. Before Logan came around Max had more then once pick pocketed cash to keep the sector cops from evicting them and to buy enough rations to last them. Clothing only came after weeks of saving up enough. Now since she had met him he has offered to help her money wise, but she turned it down. At first out of pride, but then it became a matter of guilt. She wasn't about to be a leach to her friends, that's not how she operated.   
  
"Afraid that's it for now baby" Max had to tell Reia the bad news. She laid her head down by the girl, to comfort her, but also to try and alleviate the sudden headache that was thumping low right around her eyes.   
  
Max only wanted to close her eyes for a minute but the next sound she heard was Cindy shaking her shoulder and calling her name.  
  
"What wrong?" the first thing she did was look at Reia, thinking it was her that Cindy was worried about.   
  
"What's wrong?" Cindy repeated "Boo I've been trying to wake you up for the past five minutes. And I know somethin' was wrong cause you don't sleep-"   
  
"I just have a headache Cindy" she interrupted, trying to be reassuring.   
  
"Headache nothin' girl you passed out. You look like crap warmed over-"  
  
"I'm fine" her head was back on the couch, and she was lightly rubbing Reia's arm.  
  
"Stop right now Ms. Thang cause I don't wanna here it" she threw a red afghan over Max's body "Quit with the Manticore hard ass solider talk and take care of this. I don't want my boo gettin' strung out sick"   
  
A knock on their door made Cindy pull back. The knock was most likely from Logan, who had gotten invited over to spend Christmas with them provided he bring a sampling of his cooking and good pre-Pulse boos.   
  
"You're boys here, and if I have to play dirty pool to get you to take care of yourself I will" she stood up and went to go answer the door.  
  
"Hey" Logan greeted Cindy with a smile, presenting her with a bottle of 2000 chardonnay.   
  
Cindy took it from him "Thanks boo, but right now I need your assistance on something-"  
  
"Name it" Logan answered back, expecting it to be something like setting the table.  
  
"Convince Max that it's ain't right to look that bad-"  
  
Logan listened to her words and turned to see Max on her couch just sitting there, beside something else, a smaller childlike form.  
  
"Max?" he approached her, taking in all the things Cindy did earlier, pale skin, soaked clothes, the legarthic way her head was resting on the back of the couch. "What's wrong with her?"  
  
"Nothing's wrong with me" Max answered, opening one eye to stare into Logan's blue ones   
  
"Don't believe her Logan" Cindy warned "She came back soaking wet from the rain, passed out just a few minutes ago-"  
  
"It was nothing-" Max tried to convince them.  
  
Logan didn't believe Max's lie either. He touched the back of one hand to her forehead. "Max you're burning up"  
  
She shied away from his hand "Thanks for the diagnosis doc-"  
  
Something beside her moved, a little girl peaked her head out from under the red afghan looking at Logan with hesitant brown eyes.  
  
Logan looked at the child, a little surprised that she was there "And who is this?" he smiled pleasantly enough at the girl, but his eyes were questioning Max on the situation.   
  
"Name's Reia" Max looked at her when she said this "She was wandering around outside. Deadbeat dad threatened to punch her lights out-"  
  
"Don't tell me you kidnapped a child," Logan reprimanded her in a low voice  
  
"What the hell was I suppose to do Logan?" Max's voice was low like his, but angry "Just leave her there so the bastard could finish the job?"   
  
Logan didn't know what to say to that, looking at the girl again "You're name's Reia huh?" his crystal blue eyes smiled at the girl.  
  
Reia shied away at the sound of his voice, burying her head in Max's arm.  
  
"S'okay honey" Max stroked the small head of brown hair "This is Logan, he's a friend of mine. He's not gonna hurt you"   
  
Reia looked up at her with sad, scared eyes. The only man that she ever remembered had always hurt her. It was hard to believe that not all men were scary like her father.  
  
Logan offered the girl a smile, trying to get her to see that he wasn't a threat. He held out one hand "Nice to meet you Reia" his eyes were warm, and he waited for her.  
  
She looked for the longest time at his hand, watching it like it might bite her. Finally though her much smaller hand touched his larger one.  
  
He gently clasped her little fingers in his grip and kissed her hand like medieval lords would do to princesses and other ladies of breeding.  
  
The corner of Reia's mouth pulled back into a very shy smile, but it vanished when she started coughing.  
  
Logan's brow pulled back in concern and he touched the girl's forehead in the same way he did Max's. "She has a fever-"  
  
Max touched her head too, "poor baby"  
  
"Should get a doctor over here to look at her, I've never dealt with children's sickness before"  
  
"I can't go back out there Logan-" Max objected, immediately taking on the responsibility. "Her ass father saw me, can't run the risk that he would find me and get to her-"  
  
"No" Logan corrected, "You can't go out there because YOU'RE sick too. I'll find someone over at Metro who makes house calls-"  
  
"Are you insane? Just call Sam, it's too risky otherwise-"  
  
"Max, Sam's not a pediatrician. Children are different then adults when they're sick-"  
  
"Fine" Max spat back "Do it, you obviously want too"  
  
He didn't answer her, and got up to make the call.  
  
*****   
  
The knock on the apartment door came around forty minutes later.   
  
"Hello Mr. Cale" A woman doctor, Dr. Peters stood there with her medical bag.  
  
"Thanks for coming on the holidays"  
  
"Not a problem"   
  
Logan directed her over to the child, who was still lying next to Max.  
  
Dr. Peters began her examination, she continued working for several minutes but her expression got more and more creased as she kept going.   
  
Max picked up on it "What is it?" getting no answer, she asked again "What's wrong?"  
  
She looked at Max "I'd like to run Reia over to the hospital-"  
  
"Doctor-" Logan cut in "Please what the hell is going on-"  
  
"I'm not one hundred percent Sir, I need to run some blood work on your daughter to be sure-" immediately upon coming in Dr. Peters assumed that Reia was the child of Logan and Max. Even though the girl was African-American. Couples adopted all the time. She just assumed that the three of them were a family.  
  
"I'm comin' with you" Max announced. Reia had become her responsibility and she wasn't about to leave her.  
  
*****   
  
METRO MEDICAL  
PEDIATRIC WARD  
  
Reia had been settled into a room with clown sheets and Winnie the Pooh paintings on the wall. Max sat in a chair next to the bed, resting her head on the bed rail. She was almost asleep. And she was still wearing the wet clothes she had on earlier.  
  
Logan's hand touching her shoulder woke her from her doze. "How you holdin' up?"  
  
Max didn't answer him, still looking at the girl swamped in the hospital bed, sleeping on her side in a Mickey Mouse hospital gown.  
  
"What could be wrong with her?" Max was single, Max was a soldier, no children, no seeds planted. But tonight every single person who worked at the hospital saw her carry in Reia through the doors, looking haggard, (from being sick, but they didn't know that) and didn't know that. To them, she was her mother, looking like all mothers looked when their babies were sick.  
  
"Lymphoma" Dr. Peters came in the room.  
  
Max's heightened ears picked it up, she turned in disbelief to the woman "Cancer?"  
  
She nodded sadly "In the last stages. Her T-cell count is down to zero. It's a wonder she made it this far. Mrs. Cale, do you have health insurance?-"  
  
Max cut her off before this doctor started thinking she was some kind of deadbeat mom who let her child get this sick and not do shit about it because of interest rates. "She's not my daughter-" Max's voice was a low, warning growl "So don't even think that me or Logan would pull that kinda crap on an innocent baby. I found her being chased down by her father. The same deadbeat who probably didn't even know that Reia was sick, probably since her birth. Too busy beating her into submission. So if you want to blame anyone for what's happening to her blame that slime suckin' SOB, and have better people skills before you sidetrack off saving a little girl and start playin' the blame game" if looks could kill Dr. Peters would be lying dead at Max's feet.  
  
"Mrs. Cale-" she still thought Max and Logan were married "I'd like you to come down to be examined. I've observed you all the way up here and I think you're developing pneumonia-"  
  
"I'm not goin' anywhere before you do something to help her-"  
  
Dr. Peters looked at her then, not accusing, but with a quiet sadness "I'm afraid there's nothing that can be done. She's in the very last stages of Lymphoma. This disease is hard enough on adults, but it ravages children. If her biological father is as bad as you say he is then she probably hasn't been feed right, cleaned right or undergone a single treatment. The cancer is in too risky of a spot for surgery. And I'm afraid radiation or chemotherapy with her undernourished body would do her more harm then good-"  
  
"Isn't there SOMETHING?" Logan got in on the act.  
  
The doctor shook her head "You were quick to call when you did, and that's something. But I'm afraid at this time all we can do is keep her comfortable-"  
  
Max looked back at Reia and up to the doctor "How long?"  
  
"If we get her hydrated, and keep her comfortable, she might be able to see another Christmas-"  
  
Max closed her eyes, she couldn't take that news, felt like Tinga dying in her arms all over again.   
  
The doctor touched her shoulder again "Mrs. Cale-"  
  
"Max" she corrected  
  
"Max" Peters went on "I'm so sorry about this. I know it hurts to loose a child you know, even if she isn't yous biologically, and I know that it hurts. But I think right now you need to be looked at so that you will be well enough to-"  
  
"To what?" Max snapped at her like a tiger "Come back and watch her die?"  
  
"She has bonded with you ma'am. She found something in you that made her feel loved for the first time in probably a long while, let that be the last thing she remembers, not all that pain"  
  
Max's eyes dropped to the floor, she hadn't felt this defeated in a long time. "I'm back here after the tests are done"  
  
"Deal" Peters responded softly.  
  
*****   
  
SAME DAY  
CHRISTMAS EVE  
  
Max had been admitted to a room on the adult ward. It turned out she had a form of acute pneumonia. She had been hooked to monitors and a nasal canola to supply oxygen to her lungs.   
  
Cindy had come up from the apartment with a change of clothes for her and some flowers.  
  
"Sorry bout Reia boo" she set the daisies on the night table in the room.  
  
Max fiddled with the IV in her arm "Not like she was mine-"  
  
"Stop it boo" Cindy jumped "OC knows how much you care for the baby boo. No mama in the world, bio or no besides her own, could love her as much"  
  
"To what? Watch her fade out?" her voice was passionate "She's only a baby. Why is she dying? What kind of sick God is there if he lets a child die so cruelly?"   
  
"I ain't no church go-er boo, but my mama always said He don't give us anymore then we can bare-"  
  
"That's crap Cindy and you know it. How does He know what I can stand? He didn't speak up one DAMN time to keep me from seeing by brother and sisters die, or Logan get shot, or Ben, or Brinn or any of them. Where the hell was God then? That wasn't LESS then I could bare."   
  
Cindy just touched her shoulder "All I know is that that baby is in there, alone. And NO ONE should be alone before they go. You are all she has left now boo. All the questions won't count for shit when that little sweetie has to take a last breath. All she'll remember is what she felt last, and if it was someone who cared about her enough to hold her as the lights went out"   
  
A shuffle by the door made Max turn her head up to actually see Alec there standing in the doorway.   
  
"Hey" he spoke hesitantly  
  
"Hey, nurses station is outside" Max made a quiet joke  
  
"Oh right yeah" Alec returned it with a smile. He came over to the bed and presented Max with, of all things marigolds. "They were out of stink weed so-"  
  
"I'll guess these will have to suffice" she smiled, looking at the flowers in her lap.  
  
"Nice set up for Christmas" Alec took in the white walls and sterility of the place  
  
"Since when do you do Christmas?" Max cocked an eyebrow at him.   
  
"Don't you know it's my favorite time Max? Ever hear of three for one at 1-900-SHACK-UP?"  
  
Max shook her head "Ho ho, Hoe" she set Alec's flowers on table beside Cindy's.   
  
A quiet knock on the door made all of them turn. Logan stood there, his leather coat still on, showing up Cindy and Alec in the flower department with a dozen long stem red roses.  
  
"Just something you managed to throw together huh?" Alec joked watching Logan give Max the flowers, and a kiss on the forehead. He settled on the side of her bed.   
  
"How's Reia doin?"  
  
"The nurses have her on 70 percent oxygen" he broke the news "and she's got some hydrating IV's and a little bit of pain killers-" he watched as her expression drop. "She was asleep the last time I was there. They said if you were feeling up to it you could go in when she wakes up"  
  
"I'm goin' even if I don't feel up to it," she told him, looking straight into his eyes.   
  
"No argument from me" he told her, smiling.  
  
She didn't return it and looked out the window. The rain from earlier had dried out, and a few tiny stars peaked out of the clouds.  
  
Logan watched her watching the stars. He touched her hand, using this action to say what he couldn't in words, gently squeezing it over the IV in her arm.  
  
"Mrs. Cale-" a nurse entered Max's room. Apparently no one had yet corrected the earlier mistake. "Did you have any other family visiting Reia?"  
  
"No" Max was confused "Why?"  
  
"Well there's a man in her room right now, he didn't even stop at my station-"   
  
Max yanked the covers off her bed and tried to stand up, but she almost hit the floor.  
  
Logan caught her by the arm, and held onto her. "Alec grab that wheel chair"   
  
Alec pushed it at him and Logan laid Max in it, snagging her IV bag off the tree.  
  
Max ripped the canola out of her nose, ignoring the burning pain.  
  
"I'll go down and check it out first-" Alec announced, snapping into X5 soldier mode. "Cindy can come with me nurse, she's a friend of Mrs. Cale-"  
  
Cindy slapped him on the head "Shut your mouth and move boy!" She and Alec left followed soon after by Logan pushing Max out the door in the chair in a complete roll reversal.  
  
A few yards down the corridor and Max stopped his movements "Logan stop, carry me it's easier"   
She stood up shakily and he lifted her into his arms without a word, giving her the IV bag to hold.  
  
Max and Logan entered Reia's room around the same time as Alec and Cindy. There was a man in there. Tall, buzzed bald, the same eyes Max had seen earlier.  
  
"You stay the hell away from her!" Max dropped down from Logan's grip and shouted at Reia's father.  
  
"She is MY daughter bitch!" he stepped closer to the baby in the bed.  
  
Reia had come awake from the noise. After seeing her father there she panicked and weakly tried to get away.  
  
The man "Stan Reams" picked her up "I'm taking my baby home. You had no fuckin' right to kidnap her"  
  
"And you have no fuckin' right to call her your baby!" Max shouted at him, still too weak to fight with anything but her words "If you were a father you would've stopped this. You were just some sperm her mom got screwed with. You are NOT taking her back to that life-"  
  
"You fucking whore I done told you enough!" Stan stepped over to Max, but Alec grabbed his neck and crushed it.   
  
"If your such a good father you wouldn't curse in front of your child" while he had Stan's neck in a death squeeze Max took Reia from him.   
  
She held onto the little girl, looking at her with the O2 mask on her face, but her eyes were still open.   
"That was scary huh? But you're fine now"  
  
Reia was trying to say something through the mask. Max lifted it off her face   
  
"no-" she struggled to breath without the oxygen "go back-"  
  
Max held onto her tighter "No baby, no goin' back. Ever"   
  
Security had been called from all the commotion and they dragged Stan out of the room.  
  
"You bitch!" Stan was shouting at Max "You two deserve each other "You're as bad as that slut I did up. Have her, and her damn funeral expenses!" the door closed.  
  
Max didn't look up to watch him leave. Logan saw that she was about to collapse so he pushed a chair for her to sit in.  
  
She held Reia in her lap, scooting back in the rocker. Her arms around her like she was still an infant.   
"I'm sorry baby girl" she rocked her gently "You deserved a better life.." a tear dropped off Max's face and onto Reia's arm. She laughed quietly "You would've been so beautiful when you grew up-" a sniff, very quiet, but heart breaking coming from a super soldier "Don't believe him for a second, he's lied to you from the beginning. You ARE beautiful.." she stroked Reia's hair rocking her. The girl smiled at her through the O2 mask, barley visible but it was there.  
  
*We are beautiful, no matter what they say  
Words can't bring us down  
We are beautiful in every single way  
Yeah words can't bring us down.*  
  
Her smile lingered on for more seconds until the air was cut with the single tone and the solid line.  
  
Max stroked her hair again, moving it away from her face, and gave her a soft kiss on her forehead.  
"You are beautiful" she still held her, rocking her still form.  
  
None of the others, Logan, Cindy or Alec came to comfort Max. They let her have the moment, to feel it, something all her own.   
  
*So don't you bring me down today*   
  
*****   
  
CHRISTMAS DAY  
OUR LADY OF THE SACRED HEART   
  
"Our Father in heaven, be with this innocent-" Father Destry's voice rose around the small gathering of people dressed in black standing beside the small coffin in the cemetery. A tiny casket housing a little girl, wearing one thing, a t-shirt that said "Girl's Kick Ass"   
  
"Show her the glories in heaven" Destry went on over the crowd sitting in folding chairs.  
  
Max stared at the closed casket, dressed in solemn black. Her new cat burglar outfit with a respectful full length black leather coat. She was still weak, and the doctors advised against her going out in the cold, but they didn't know Max as well as they thought they did. She defied them.   
  
Logan sat beside her, his black suit and black suit coat only broken up by his crisp white linen shirt and ice blue eyes. His leather gloved hand squeezed hers covered in the same fabric.  
  
"Forgive those Lord who had no knowledge of what a wonderous thing it is to have a child, and be with those who are grieving because they did" Destry looked at Max when he said this. "Let us pray" he and the others bowed their heads.  
  
"Our Father who art in heaven  
Hallowed be thy name  
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done  
On earth as it is in heaven  
Give us this day our daily bread  
And forgive us our debts-"   
  
"As we forgive our debters" Logan repeated the words the Father was saying, kissing Max's hand.  
  
"..Forever and ever amen" Max finished the prayer with the others.  
  
After the tiny casket was lowered into the ground Destry dismissed the gathering. He stepped over to Max on the dewy grass. His smile was warm enough, a bit sad considering the circumstances.  
"Ms. Guevara" he offered her a light hug, and quiet kiss on the cheek.  
  
"Thank you for the ceremony Father" Max spoke up "I don't know how you did it so fast-"  
  
"The Lord moves people in mysterious ways Ms. Guevara." A pause "I'm sorry for your loss"  
  
"She wasn't mine Father"  
  
"Who are you trying to convince?" he looked at her with a knowledge beyond his years. "If loving something enough makes them yours, then she WAS yours." He looked to Logan "And so our the others in your life"  
  
Logan shook the hand he offered "It was a beautiful ceremony Father"  
  
"Thank you for your part in funding Mr. Cale" Destry offered him a touch on the shoulder and walked away.   
  
Logan put his arm around Max and kissed her forehead.  
  
Cindy and Normal stepped over to them. Normal had actually been invited, by Cindy of all people.  
  
"Max I-" for once the anal Normal was at a loss for words, dressed like a 60's G-man in his black suit with no where near the sheekness of Logan's Armani, but it looked nice just the same. Normal touched Max's shoulder "I'm sorry. Take all the time you need off." He released his hand "But I still have to dock your pay after a week"  
  
Max had to smile a bit at that "I understand"  
  
He actually smiled too, small and left.  
  
Cindy looked a bit stunned at Normal's declaration "You doin' aiight boo?"  
  
"If I said 'yeah' you'd think I'm lyin'" Max returned  
  
"This time it was Cindy's turn to laugh. She held out her arms and Max fell into the embrace. Cindy kissed her long hair, pulled into a ponytail with a clip. "Bet little baby girl is kickin it with those brotha's and sistah's of yours in heaven"  
  
Max laughed quietly and pulled back.  
  
"Be here always" Cindy kissed her  
  
"Thanks"   
  
Cindy looked to Logan "No smack down threats this time boy. Just take care her aiight?"   
  
"I will" Logan answered and watched her turn to leave to give them some time alone.  
  
Max turned to the closed coffin, now deep in the plot. Slowly she stepped over to it, her black boots soundless on the ground.  
  
The headstone was beautiful, an angel with folded wings, with the carvings on it.  
  
Reia AlyseReams  
2018-December 24, 2021  
"..no goin' back.."   
  
  
She picked up a single rose from the arrangements on the side of the grave. "Merry Christmas baby" she kissed the flower and threw it into the grave.   
  
Logan stepped up beside her.   
  
"Saddest thing when a child never knows love"  
  
"She knew it" he reprimanded her gently, turning to her   
  
"It was only one night-"  
  
"But it was her last memory, and it was a better one because of you" he was gazing directly into her eyes now. "All her pain and misery and you took it away for one night. But you gave her peace when it counted the most"  
  
"Do you believe in God Logan?" she didn't look at him when she said this.  
  
"I have my beliefs," he told her "They may not include God in the orthodox Christian sense of the word."  
  
"There's too much pain for a saving God like that" she agreed sadly  
  
"But I believe in you" he turned to her "You have been granted a wonderous gift Max, to affect people's lives in ways that Manticore and Lydecker never programmed you for. And Reia was given a piece of that to take with her. She finally found someone to light up her life"   
  
Max turned to him then, her eyes pooling "I'm not light Logan, she picked the wrong person for that"   
  
"But not for someone to love her"  
  
Max picked up a clump of dirt in her hand from around the grave. "No goin' back there baby, ever." She let it fall into the grave of a little girl she barely knew, but still grieved for her on a Christmas Day not filled with the holiday norms.  
  
She never really celebrated Christmas completely. But she would from now on. It was the least she could do for a little girl she barely knew but her knew her enough to count. "Take care of her Ben" she looked at the first few stars twinkling in the night sky.   
  
(MAX V.O) "Sometimes I wonder why people believe completely in Christmas magic. How many have died while others kept them alive, holding out for a miracle, but letting them suffer in the mean time."  
  
She touched the gravestone and kissed the cold marble.  
  
(MAX V.O) "I barely knew her, but it was enough to know that the only Christmas miracle that happened was being able to see an innocence in a child that I never saw in myself"  
  
She turned her head up to look at Logan. He held out his hand for her to take.  
  
She stepped over to him silently on the grass and took the hand he offered, walking away, but holding onto something.  
  
  
*****   
  
END  
  
Sorry that was sad, but I didn't want to do the "Christmas turkey holiday kisses and elves" I wanted something that would stick with you. It was SUPPOSE to be sad.  
  
Every year hundreds of children are abused in their own homes. I'm not talking about getting spanked by parents who love their children and only do it enough to make them understand that. I'm talkin' bout the hardcore stuff, kids who are scared to come home because they fear for their lives, of being sexually assaulted. If you are the victim of these events, or you know of it going on, PLEASE do something about it. Call your local child abuse organization chapter (here in the US its HRS). Not getting involved is sentencing children to things they never asked for, remember that.   
  
The two songs I used in here are "Family Potrait" by Pink and "Beautiful" by Christina Agualria.  
  
R/R please. HAPPY NEW YEAR  
  
. 


End file.
